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7/27/2008

A survey by Medpage Today indicates that few think guns are a public health issue

The claim is that their survey shows that 80 percent of Americans don't think that guns are a public health issue, and that even among doctors the question is closely divided about 50 to 50 percent. The comments by one nurse were these:

A nurse with 40 years of experience countered, saying that the medical community needs to stay out of areas it has no business in -- and guns is one of them. "If you're taking care of a hole in the abdomen, do your job, take care of the medical issue before you, don't take your emotions into the home, street, farm, ballot box, legislature. Medical knowledge and experience is not a license to drive social and moral culture."

My take is that the nurse is right. Doctors see the bad things that happen and it motivates them to do what they think is good. Take away the guns and those bad things won't happen. However, what the doctors don't see is the acts by guns that keep others from showing up in their emergency rooms. They are well motivated, but seeing only part of the picture causes them to misdiagnose the cure.